Ella McCay with Richard Lawson

I'm not going to talk yet. I'm not comfortable with podcasting, so I guess you could call me a reluctant narrator, but I just wanted to show up for blank check. I owe her a lot, so let's just thank you, start. At first I was like, that's a horrible Elviprooks.

And then I was like, oh, it's actually a good captain. Thank you, late period, Captain. There is no quits page for this movie. I mean, it hasn't come out yet.

I mean, it's defense. I'm sure it'll be funny. If people usually are adding things from the trailer where you can find other websites that have it. And instead, what I just had to do was go back to the script for Ella McKay, which I will talk about I read in April of 2024.

Because you read for the cabinet part. Exactly. And they were like, you don't seem reluctant enough as an narrator. So what I just said might not actually match word for word what is in the film, but it's along those lines.

It's something like that. I'll say this as well. Hi, I'm an narrator. A listener of the show, Message Me, sent me a private message, I guess, like a year and a half ago that they had gone to a test screen of this film in 2024.

Tallyoni, Message Me. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then like four months ago, Message Me again, I got a flyer for another test screen. I want to go and see how much they changed.

And there were reshoots, I believe, at the beginning of this year that were fairly extensive. And he was like, the single biggest change was on screen character narration. And like her sitting down in front of the camera. Which was not part of the script on paper and was not part of the original cut.

They don't do it a lot. She was always narrating it in a character in the movie, but then they're like, to tell you the truth, I'm not about her. This is a pretty good character doing. And so she's 75 years old.

She is. Which is the age that she should be. As a woman who's been in her industry for a long time. I think she's doing that right.

And she's a living legend. I love her. And I was honestly kind of happy to see her. Agreed.

Well, there's a lot of things like that. Yeah, large. Yeah. Grandma.

And yet on the Simpsons permanently 37 or whatever. Well, it's also someone who is still very slowly pursuing the Herculean task of having watched every episode of The Simpsons. And I'm still like 10 years behind in that. Even though I knocked out like 30 plus episodes a year.

So only 220 episodes a year ago. It's truly like I feel like, man, their voices have all really gotten bad and they're sounding really old. And yet when I see a clip from like a new episode, it is astonishing. And it feels really uncanny.

But seeing her on screen doesn't have that same effect. The problem is that Marge still looks the same age. And now it sounds like this. Seeing oldie.

Oldie. Oldie. I'm like, yeah, no, she sounds healthy. Yes, it's just her voice.

That's that's who and in some ways the brain does a trick. We were like, that's what she was always like. Yes. No, that's not actually true.

I read something that Brooks has known her since she was 19. Wow. What was a 19-year-old Julie Kavner like? I already stuck up the bass.

So James Elbrook is 10 years older than her. So he would have been 29. Oh, I hope he knew we're in the proper context. There was no hanky-panky.

Back then. The tagline for this film, Griffith, you couldn't find, because I think one of the posters just says the new comedy from James Elbrook or whatever is. Yeah. I'm not sure if you're interested in the poster.

That's her and Jamie Lee Curtis grabbing each other. Jamie Lee Curtis is sucking her life energies via her neck. A poster that was thankfully replaced with the main marketing image. The iconic image.

The stickiest posture of the stickiest. The suddenly- I see it. You know, like I don't know how she does it. Yeah.

I nailed that fucking post. It was astonishing. Gen Z's favorite thing in the world is the element K challenge. And we want to make sure all of our listeners know there's still time just because the episodes come out just because it's like past opening weekend.

You're not too late to contribute to the element K challenge. Do the pose in front of the poster. But Ben and I took pictures of each other doing it. And mine was so fucking smashed by Ben's success.

This was fine. I'm going to say we should even post mine. I was like Ben, let's like try it and I'll give you notes to adjust it. And on the first try, you know, lined up perfectly.

One take-hosly. They've always called it. And it's a tough pose to do because it is what I'm standing on one foot. I mean, I physically don't think I could do that anymore.

I don't know how she does that. I don't know how she does that. And Lieutenant Governor, the tegeline was a story about the people you love and how to survive. Oh, which is so like the other generic.

A podcast about the people you love and how to survive. Ben just show me the photo. It's actually a perfect met. I'd say it's better than your calendar.

It's really good. You're not even like, oh, he's close. You're like, no, it's exactly. In goal is identical.

And it's a tough pose to maintain. What's this podcast? This podcast is called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

And I'm David. Nice. It's a podcast about filmography. Directors who have mastered success early on in their careers.

And I give it a series of lectures. Yeah, I did the Julie Captain or Aging. I did the Julie Captain or Aging. I did the Julie Captain or Aging.

I did the series. Oh, me. And now we're into the crazy action projects they want. And now we're into this podcast.

It's just going to be me talking because you guys will have destroyed your voices with Catherine. Yeah. That's about it. Maybe.

I did a miniseries on the films of James Elbrookes. Yeah, when was that? It was Shockley. You wanted to go back to it.

17 or 18? Yeah. And what was it called? It was called podcast news.

Oh, yeah. I wanted to call it as a cause and that was one of the early we're going to fight about the title in every episode. Many series. But podcast news that was a great little, the nice art of us all in the TV and all that.

And you made the argument which was fair of cast. He made a movie with a word cast. Beyond it. He made a movie with a podcast.

That's right. You were like, even more. Come on, we can't not do this. We covered it.

It was in 2018, early 2018. And I was like, I'm not going to say, so at that point where eight years passed, how do you know? Yep. Which felt comfortably like the last movie he will ever make.

Right. Right. It was like, I guess James Elbrookes the man is approaching his 80s. He's basically retired.

The size of the law. Let's survey his career. No one's going to let him do this again. Does he have the energy to even try to do this again?

I had heard stories from people who worked on that film and people who auditioned for that film where they were like, noticing how much since he takes such a long time between films. He was like, I forgot it takes this much energy that he was seeming worn down by trying to get through another movie. And yet here we are. 15 years after.

How do you know? James Elbrookes returns a follow up new release to a mini series I thought would never fucking happen. I will say I probably would have put the odds about the same as the directors we've covered who are dead. Right.

It is astonishing. There's a new buster Keaton movie that you're yeah. And you know, he's a blank check guy. He had a couple massive successes.

But I'll be among the blankets of checks in a way. Got you the character poster for Steve's on in Anaconda. What do you think? I don't want to see that movie.

Oh, everything about it makes me angry. No. And yet I see, I see he's on over the folder and I'm like, he doesn't get to do this that often anymore. I'm going to remake.

So they're aware of the movie. Oh, they're not just aware. They're big band. They were kids who remade an account in their backyard and now as adults in a sort of tag like let's pick up our childlike traditions.

Let's go back and remake it again. But this time go to the real jungle and when they get to the real jungle. That thing actually goes wrong. Correct.

So it's like Tropic Thunder plus be kind of rewind plus the fucking Raiders kids documentary plus, you know, the eighth circle of hell. But we don't let Steve is on to the production studio comedy anymore. So I guess they have my $20, $32 and $40 X or whatever. So I can feel some fucking snakes spit at me.

The point is, I'm getting a wide release from the folks at 20th century studios. Now a division of Walt Disney picture. Yeah. A move that just like shocked everyone when it was announced and the scuttle butt had been quietly for the last three years.

There, this is a quid pro quo. It's a very specific type of blank check, which is we will let you make another film at a capped budget. Yes, not $120 million. Maybe not.

Yeah, they learn a lesson. If you can successfully convince everyone to make a second Simpsons movie and like clockwork, the second Simpsons movie was officially announced one month ago. It is like a sort of a like hostage negotiation blank check, but he was holding valuable cards for them. I mean, I remember reading about when they were like, because my parents lived in Providence, Rhode Island where this movie was largely shot.

And so there was like local news about like James Elbrooke's terms of endearment director casting locals in Providence. And I was like, oh, my mom was like, that's so exciting. What do you know? And I said, oh, that's probably not going to happen.

You said, how do you know? Well, exactly. But I was like, that's something that's English. You just said it.

Well, I was speaking to my mom in Spanish, but I just assumed that like, oh, it's one of those things gets announced and then it just sort of disappears. It felt like that. And you know, he was very hands on with these two Kelly Feremont Craig movies. Who's like his mentee?

Yes. It's very excellent. You just haven't seen him or either. Got it's me, Margaret.

To be clear. And you would hear these kind of rumblings or he'd give like interviews and promoting those two films where he's like, you know what? Watch and Kelly work has kind of reignited a passion in me. So I previously thought I'd never make a movie again.

But I've been noodling with some ideas and you're like, will never happen, even if he finished the script that he wanted to make, no one's going to let him do this again. How do you know was just such a fucking calamity that one could argue kind of killed the studio company. I think that's like as serious a culprit as anything without a bit of a blow. Yeah, I think it also like hastened the end of Nicholson's career.

It hastened like everything. Yeah, it was it's a bit over time Oh, it's not Owen Wilson for being a movie star. It sent Reese Witherspoon to television It was like for noble level. It's a lot of shit.

The way it like poisoned everyone who runs with it Like a thousand miles. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's like thankfully he had more of a coming up soon Like true, you know, which kind of like bounced him back But then you're like right here's Paul Rudd like one of our greatest comedy stars Doesn't really get to make comedy movies anymore unless they're an anaconda reboot or a Ghostbusters like a sequel Or Ant-Man the comedy version, you know The thing the model has to pure comedy so fun This is what I'm saying But like he's become a big budget IP comedy guy where you're like, oh, he's got a little off the hump energy Like the role models days are far over and how do you know? I think was supposed to be a transition moment or like Paul Rudd from role models to like I would say almost equivalent from Tom Hanks making the switch from bachelor party to sleepless in Seattle at classy right? Comedy's elegant expensive elevated comes out at the most alive and yet has to totally pivot.

There's like a You're struggling those movies. Yeah, yeah, what I was going to say is that no, okay fine What were you gonna say just get ahead of this? I read the script several years ago I did not audition for it My rep sent it to me and said do you want to read this to see if you're interested in playing the brother? And I get to the brother character and I'm like this character is supposed to be like 23 I'm in my mid 30s and Ela McKay is a character that exists across like three temporalities, but at her oldest She's in her mid 30s if they cast an actress who is like late 30s and age her down for the earlier stuff Then maybe we can put a fucking wig on me and that was in pounds of makeup and you would say waving through window This is the exact part I would have wanted to audition for when I was 22 Of course like even reading it I was like fuck and the second thing were like it sounds like he wants to cast Emma Mackey I was like I'm not putting myself on tape.

This is embarrassing if Julie Kafter had played the Emma Mackey parts I could play the other brother But when I read the script I was like are they really gonna make this and it was like it hasn't been greenly yet But they're letting him do casting to see if he can assemble the right people then the writer strike hits like a week after I read it and then the sag strike and I was just like fuck if this thing is now slowed down for six months in casting This is never happening. Yeah, it's really long right the script is longer. Yeah, but who's our guest? Oh, yes, right our guest today and talking about elomak a yes starring Emma Mackey So true is gay the great Richard lost hello.

No, usually when you come on the show we introduce you with the same old tired Bylines. Yeah, so I was let go from very to fair because they found out I had been sleeping with Congressman Barney Frank for a number of years Yes, no pulls visible while reviewing his films with many many stag I Know the real problem is that you were sleeping with him in the side Apartment of a government building. Yes, come on These narratives are distinct and clear Griffin. There's no question I swear I'm not gonna do this what was different in the script thing And I even went out of my way to not reread the script so that I wasn't being personicity about that But I feel very confident that in the original script the affair was happening in the phone call center Which would make a lot more so much time to set up in this movie and then it doesn't really impact anything But instead they're like, you know, it turned out there was an apartment in a government building that no one uses that we snuck into because I guess If the affair happened in the phone I mean that look the entire quote unquote scandal is engineered in this way to make it nobody's fault and nobody's really done anything wrong and you know I mean like it's like they were just trying to be calibrated in this like really you know Inoffensive anything kind of one of the big conceit if you like shot someone if like what if someone got caught in a scandal that actually doesn't mean anything to anyone Right technically could be used to take them down even if there's no real offense being committed here, right?

Like water get and in my memory exactly they just want to read the files. Oh, oh Let him look why not what did he got to hide? Being or strategy. Oh, okay in the like campaign phone bank center.

Yeah was explained through like 15 additional pages of That law was that it wasn't illegal, but it affected campaign finance. It's possible or into James L Brooks Is it possible based on some real scandal? He like you know notice the you know quick You hear this shit about him where he was like spending five years researching retired female softball players for how do you know? Because he's just like I got very caught up in their lives and like no one talks about this And I had to research for five years before I could even write a single word and this feels like there is some case He heard about yeah of like that's weird that there are laws like funny technicality Right and whether he and I'm up with him and imagine everyone sparked by that idea He based it around a real thing I don't know and he did like interview a lot of politicians like in the writing process, right?

So like I wonder if he talked to a lot of female politicians who were like yeah When you're like that busy is and you're trying to start a family It's actually really hard to find time to do you know what you know and sure maybe that I don't know But it's something it's like there was a better way to include that idea in the story I feel the way about almost everything in this movie a movie that I did not pay yeah But is certainly gas leaks in a month. Yeah is you saw David and came back to me and said I kind of liked it And I was like that's exciting and you went I mean it is like Handily by default his fourth best film right but that's uh, there's a big gap even people who hate this movie I think we'll need to concede it is his fourth best is that makes man less nor no well someone in this room is probably gonna wait I guess I really listen to the show episode and I'd forgotten how and dearingly Ben really likes them I think it's fun. It's great and you're your contributions in that episode are lovely because it's like tempering our mind I saw this movie with Ben has Lee earlier this week and he turned to me the second was over and you know what he said and Ben kind of liked it good. Excuse me.

No, you said I loved it. I did while doing the post. Yeah I don't know and I'm not sure I've been thinking about how to mount a defense for it And it's I don't know how even to other than and it's the same thing with spanglish I just I like these small stories about regular people that I find someone endearing though often at times annoying But that feels authentic and even the on-tech kind of repartee dialogue kind of stuff It doesn't greet me even though I would like expect it to I actually just like I lock it We sat next to the great Bob Marshall and then Ben's what are you guys talking about? I loved it was in response to me saying yeah, it's kind of bad But it's the type of bad movie I've really missed and yeah type of bad movie I greatly to prefer to most of the shit that studios are putting I miss that which on her movie so much You're you know sister brother podcast this had Oscar buzz did an episode recently unused people like a very forgotten You know, like who's in that?

Sterling McLean right? Yeah, Kathy Bates. Yeah, Tandy Yeah, that's good principle some of that I'm playing a Jewish family Marcelo Mastrioni Marcia Gay Harden Joey pants. I'm actually not noticing a lot of Jews But yeah, this is where I leave you but anyway, not a good movie Yeah, but like man they used to just make movies about like a quirky family or like yes someone trying to like we all live in a neighborhood Yeah, we yell at each other.

I mean sort of a moonstruck run off I'll say like having a couple days sitting on it I'm like finding more and more reasons to put up tiny half-hearted defenses for elements of this movie. Oh my goodness I love mens. We should plug things But before that I have to tell you the dual tagline of used people it's a float Let's say I'm saying Marsha Kathy Shirley Marcelo and Tandy first names only on the post me Oh, I wish it were there up But they're also a group together and then Shirley's kind of like got her she's like leaning on the moon You know, so it's very moonstrucky and then there's a boy playing the accordion below them Not sure why but what I like about the tagline is it's like me saying I'm done talking about something Here's the tagline a story about love family and other embarrassments used people. Here's the second tagline life's tough so we're full little You got a problem with this week of the game watch it We promise it's so defensive but it's also a little like where it's not giving Stuff what are you gonna do not see you as two people and then at the very end of the closing credits?

It says you didn't like it. What do we care? Yes, the shocking news so I got booted for my congressional sex handle it shook the nation Yeah, but you know every from every disgrace comes opportunity right in a book called American It's actually called American cantone. It's a And you're really Yeah, you could not stay that is fell we found her fucking my space Could not believe that move it's bel-g-a-o-l like the British.

Yeah, very Victorian. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I stay in a cocking accent It's actually a job. I know I started a newsletter called premiere party that it's on beehive but it's not sub-suck it's beehive Um, it's gonna be movie reviews and other things recaps But probably the recaps will live behind the paywall like traders recaps Maybe some other shows reality shows very excited about that in the glorious days of recapping you were one of the internet's greatest Thank you. It's the only reason I have a career frankly. Um, so yeah, you're whole generation Basically are the people who made it out of the recap industry alive.

I got speaking of the sine-as-gore about sine-as-gore I got hired at Vanity Fair because of gossa-girl recaps and because I knew the person who eventually like put me up for the job through gossa-girl Um, so anyway, I'm excited to get back to that. I hope you're listeners whom I love and um, you know, I've been with for a long time now You guys want to ask your friends? Um, we'll subscribe if they have the means I'm excited to read it myself and I'm very excited for this new endeavor You're plugging here that in no way affects my daily stress level or amount of responsibility basis. That's it.

Wait a second. What's in this door creep? What's in this congressional apartment? Uh, yeah, there's one other thing that we're doing.

There's one other thing that we're we are incredibly excited about Which is uh, we're we're testing the water of expanding the the blank track productions umbrella a little bit And we are excited to announce that there is going to be a miniseries Running at the beginning of next year. It will be on our feed The same feed you're listening to right now. It will be a second release episode later in the week every week Two a week. Richard you want to tell people what the show is?

Yeah, it's gonna be a recap of the second season of design. You women so get watching now We've heard your cries. We're finally answering them. Yep.

Can't wait for it to talk about, you know, gene smart back when it's called pod signing win cast It's called me shat taylor cast. Um, no, uh, the show is called critical darlings because I am a film critic still even though i'm just Independent I'm just darling. Um, and you're just darling. Well, thank you.

I'm a little darlin look cutie Um, and my co-host the great alison millmore of vulture is also a film critic And she is also even darliner than I am. Yes, but we're also second meaning Going to be talking about movies that were for the most part some of the critical darlings of the year It's yes as we're in you know top 10 season awards season all of that We're gonna do a show throughout january february in march a new episode every week that is you and alison Produced by her friend, uh ben fresh. Yep producer ben too. Yeah.

Well because you have to have a it's in your bylaws You know, I was in the bylaws. Um, and for a while it was gonna be chapero But I would be you know, but you guys didn't really want to partner with daily wire for whatever reason But yeah, why is it going through marches? There's something happening there that would somehow work Yeah, right handing out how do I describe them miniature? miniature Males yeah, um, yeah, so it is it is in some ways an oscars podcast because we will primarily be focusing on you know The the 10 movies or so that our best picture contenders and then later nominees Um, but I'm sure the conversation will expand past that and we'll talk about more critical darlin movies of the year that maybe didn't get nominated Yeah, we're just gonna kind of take the temperature of this year's quote-unquote prestige movies in a way that this podcast is expansive You guys are able to be can't always do because it's not they're not attached to a specific Occasionally we'll get an LMK which is a Oscar front right they already won.

Yeah. Yeah, they call the ceremony off Yeah, we all know where this is kind of a bummer for our new podcast, but whatever we'll make do Other candidates have announced they're stepping down a ham that has pulled out of the race out of deference ham It is throwing its down against Jeffy Buckley committed step a coup in front of jolly calf Uh, but you and I'll turn to the best into of the the dearest friends of the podcast and I think are people I'm always excited read or listen to in any format talk about what's going on and our show obviously is often recorded very far in advance Yeah, and people love when they get to hear our new release episodes where we're talking in a tiger window can speak more about current Events, I think this show will also serve that function of being able to talk about what's going on the movie world that week how the sort of narratives of a year of cinema Get formed and that's really what happens at the beginning of every year is we start to basically assemble the yearbook of how that year that just ended Will be talked about and that ends with the awards, but that's obviously not the end of the true conversation No, no the conversation can go on and on so but yeah, I think that it's gonna be really fun to to talk about these movies that For the most part you guys have not covered on the show, but also like you know, we're gonna do like an episode about the nominations We're gonna do some predictions We're gonna do you know lots of other stuff that's sort of related to this class of movies of 2020 we will guess Other friends of blank check universe. Yes, we're very excited about thank you And thank you for this all began to peek behind the curtain right after I lost my job I was at Barney Frank's house crying and I texted My home state was the your conga no, he was he's more south eastern Massachusetts actually But I texted you I think it was like a couple days after I got the news kind of like not seriously I can't do spin off podcast and then lo and behold all these months later You guys took it seriously and that is the honor of a lifetime. So thank you It's it's in many months to figure out how it happened.

We should mention it's gonna be a co-production with a vulture Yes, because Allison is at vulture and so we're gonna use some of their fine resources and it's gonna be great And actually to support yes, you got both of Jesse David Foxes arms you get to use them That's right. Yeah, and Allison I was solely be talking about stand-up sets We saw from before right and Rebecca altar it will break through the wall like a cool-aid man But only once yes, no when right she will have a segment of you in the popcorn bucket for that specific candidate and I'll just be like Allison name and shame and lead the starts between the letters R and Z You know Bucket has not been selling super well, which is the shoe turn sideways. It's hard to fuck. It's actually what he harrisons confused Hey, what less hard to fuck, but you know, yeah, very excited for critical darling Yes, thank you critical darlings I think we have January 1st as a premiere date you guys dark that week so we think that's the other fun thing is we obviously take this like This the gap between kind of Christmas and New Year's off every year from our main feed And that's when we're gonna drop the first one for you to kick off 2026 and then it will come out every Thursday after that That's right and yeah for now.

We're running through March, but who knows what the future holds who knows yeah Lanky's quick question and be honest. When was the last time you actually thought about how much fiber you were eating not protein not calories Fiber in the US fewer than one in ten adults hit their daily recommended intake and fiber isn't a bonus nutrient It's foundational. That's where fuel comes in on those days when I got a rush to the studio to tape an episode And I need a quick and healthy meal I reach for one bottle or one scoop that gives me everything a real meal is supposed to give you the black edition ready to drink 35 grams of protein 7 grams of fiber 27 essential vitamins and minerals no artificial sweeteners It's gluten-free and it's under five bucks or let's say on the days that I want something a little more customizable I use the black edition powder I can add it to whatever and get 40 grams of protein same complete nutrition just a different vibe The RTD and powder duo has become my insurance policy against chaotic days and makes staying consistent so easy limited time offer yet He'll today with our exclusive offer of 15% off online with our code check at he will calm Check new customers only thanks fuel for partnering and supporting our show David yes, I'm intentional air about you today. Well, I'm more intentional about what I wear day-to-day Oh, I believe into pieces that feel easy comfortable and put together.

I'm sure you can get those from anywhere. Oh quince look Really? Oh, he's showing. He's showing tag on me.

Um, it's been my go-to because very clean fits very nice fabrics Yeah, they don't feel like cheap fabrics. I hate dirty fits. I hate cheap fabrics I am it we're in you know, it's the weather's getting warmer I really rely on my quince polo shirts for the kind of like exactly like a formal enough piece of clothing I'm go to the office, but it's comfy. Yes, cuz we do have a dress code here head-blings So they got those hundred percent pima cotton tees with a softness.

We got a feel enjoy and for those Oh David is touching the fabric can't sit that same balance relaxing comfortable I gotta tell you I recently had a birthday and my in-laws sent me a quince gift card because they know I like Quinn so much and I am itching to spend this that's a really strong endorsement doors man. Yes, right? Yes, everything at quince is priced 58% less than what you find is similar brands because they work with those ethical factories They cut out the middleman getting premium materials without the markup. Mm-hmm.

I've got this cashmere zip. Hey David is showing me Oh nice cashmere zip cutter. I like that cutter. Yeah, I wear it all the time.

It's got pockets So professor every day with luxury you actually use head to quince.com Check for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada to that's qu I and see e.com slash check for free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash It is funny that there were a couple things like we're on a wedding day. No, that's ironic. Sorry, Kerryam Yeah, it's funny like TBS When we power director in the past and have any release we circle back and put it on main feet Yeah, there were a couple things on paper if you were looking at the schedule a year ago We're like huh some of our past subjects might be back in the Oscar race such as house of dynamite. Yeah, okay I've stepped on am I we have a avatar fire and ash is this thing on and no other choice still to come but certainly No, none of those movies feel like significant front runners.

No, no, no, no, but they're all We're certainly positioned and have been released in this corridor for that purpose. They are they are very much a fall to Christmas movies Yes, the original announcement was that Disney Fox was putting this in September It was like that feels like the obvious place to burn this off if you don't have a lot of faith in this everyone was saying ago It's missing you sure it seems all broke like yeah And then they pushed it to the week before Christmas and people were like are they feeling good about it? Well, that's not an obvious place to bury a movie who played zero festivals not even like a fire anything Yeah, we will not know at the time of this recording how it's performing at the box office Yeah, well, it's gonna be 40 million six million. We're just not sure yet Friday.

Oh, I'm not sure. Yeah, yeah I don't think it's gonna be enormous big into topia too. It's a zero disrespect I could see this being the first movie to open to negative I don't think it's gonna make a lot of money and I don't think it's going to get good review And a lot of that is you can just see Disney being like we don't even want to fucking market this type of movie anymore Because all the people who used to are retired or dead It's also the audience for this kind of movie seemingly, you know, is not really there in theaters anymore And I like this movie I think it's an interesting little thing but I'd be the first to admit that it's it's kind of hard to explain what it is And it's messy and that James Hill Brooks way of it's got a lot of ideas and a lot of characters and I mean the poster has nine people above the title some of whom are famous I mean, it's so fine to this point first poster is genuinely Curtis grabbing her folders the tagline you mentioned and that's clearly Disney being like People are doing really Curtis now, right? It's really sell this is genuinely a word right?

We have freakier Friday coming out the same year right right and then they're trying to get a brassy Matriarchal figure right and actually but yeah in a supporting part Yeah, then they transition to the the infamous pose poster just a stark white background trying to position it as like this is James Hill Brooks trying to make another star making movie a vehicle for an actress leveling up Mm-hmm and then that's it for Taylor, you know exactly this final poster has been that same image But now with like 27 they put some square floating Head so they got Camille Jamie Lee Cardis Woody Harrelson in the most normal regular wig Albert Brooks I owe our friend I would be very who's a Deborah every sorry who is Almost a spoiler to put on the poster just the way the movie treats that character and then Jack Loudon So they're not putting spike for none the poster despite him being I suppose a big character It's not very well known. I would argue he is the sort of is and but I mean Part for somebody doesn't show up for a while I also say for having your brother takes a look at that up. I will say I'm sure he did Yes read the script Yeah, the part feels bigger in the final movie than it did in reading it because it feels like the stuff They cut out was in the other plot lines versus every single second of the brother plot line is in there And also I remember it being a little more dispersed and it does feel like the middle 30 minutes of the movie are all Her and the brother and then this big day new month with IO who this movie was passed long ago enough that she basically Gries to do this like right after season one of the day I was like Jim's a book and now they're marketing it with her face on the poster and then was like did they come most of that character out? I'm like no it was always this one scene.

Yeah, not including Rebecca all But I guess she's only got the one scene. Yes in my memory. There was a little more that was also cut out not including Cavner you don't want Cavner up there crazy about it not including Troy Garrett I think I think he's not in the final cut. I'm seeing him on Wikipedia I'm nuts an older lady saying I'm nuts about her about like a kind of a younger woman That is the most like I think that might be the brooks in the movie and it happens within the first two minutes It was it was just like being put in a warm bath.

Yeah, I was like, yes, please This is an ultimate. They don't make them like this and they don't make them like this and possibly they never did except for this One argument can then be is that a good thing or not? But you watch it you're like this is an experience that does not exist in our movie ecosystem We're certainly not coming from a major studio and the watching this in a theater feels uncanny because you're so used to every version of a movie Like this being punted straight to streaming, you know, I saw this film at Disney's headquarters. Which is a weird experience Yeah, you were there, right?

Yeah, which is they have a fairly new building down in downtown Manhattan Yeah, with a gorgeous theater and also that is for a studio screening room enormous Like you go like universal screening room's pretty small even their old one was small. Yeah, Warner's screening were small What this is like state of the art text out of the key? I didn't see me You know, it's was sad is all the song of the South characters were not lovely were there and that was kind of unfortunate I've heard Pluto still largely work from home. Yeah, yeah Yeah, just inviting the RTO policy with the union And so yeah, it was one of those like there's two hundred seats like take your pick it up It's like right here, baby, and I watched it with several other members of our critics or organization, which is why we were seeing it and Shuckled heartily and heard no other struggles around well.

Here's the thing about it is I did You are the same screen. I didn't I wanted more for it But the thing is and yes, you're right David It probably will get some negative reviews and if I were reviewing it my review ultimately would have been negative But I don't I'm really dreading a snark about it. I am because it does not know what was that? You know, it's like it's an 85 year old guy trying to harken back to a wonderful as Ben pointed out wonderful era of movies when a lot of Like I suggested and I find nothing wrong with that effort.

I agree execution. Maybe you know desires But like I don't know I just I can't I really am dreading that people be like can you believe this scene? No, it's it's a problem with a lot of our discourse and I do think when this movie likely flops It's been inspired a lot of really annoying headlines from just sort of industry handicappers We're not even talking about the artistry behind it or lack thereof You know either one a defensible position but are more talking about like it makes no business to make this movie And it's like well This movie got made because he has this fucking controlling the Simpsons But also we should not be discouraging studios from trying to make movies like this It is not a big risk on their part financially sure isn't know especially now, you know, you know, you know And I don't want to start but that doesn't mean there's not a lot of things But that's the thing it's but it's a loving my heart stuff. Yeah, you remember me texting you when I got the script No, I was I was filming Alex Rose Perry's pavement and there was like many hours in between setups Or I wasn't needed or whatever and I'm like sitting on the set Which is just like an office right on a couch and the script kind of came through and I was like oh I'm gonna read this immediately and I texted the blank check group text like halfway through it And I'm like well first I text and I was like holy shit because we had reading new James And I was like there's a new Brooks movie They're casting and I have the script on my phone right now And then I read it and halfway through I'm like guys some of this is great and it very much read well not identical to the finished movie Like the movie where I'm like there'll be 15 pages where I'm like what the fuck is Brooks on about?

And then there's like 10 pages where you're like oh shit There's an idea here and the dialogues crackling and this character's fun And I said to the group when I finished it my big question is this reads like the best movie he's made in 20 years Sure, but it's again a little bit messy and not perfect It feels very kind of vomit drafty and even still think praise better than the last three or last two I guess and my question is is this how like Broadcast news read early before he massaged it and got perfect or did how do you know half work on paper? And then he totally lost it in the process and you hear about how long and drawn out every Brooks production is how we reworks things How we rewrites things reshoots things and you're just like this clearly isn't a final document But which direction does this go in which is why like after I saw it? I was like texting like Bobby finger and dandadario and other someone else about it And I was like they're like did you like it? I don't know but I was like honestly I would watch the version that's 45 minutes longer Even if it's also a mess at least I'm seeing the complete mess You know and I'm just endlessly curious about what was cut and what it would have added or taken away because yeah You're right like it maybe I don't know like his his he can turn his vomit into something really remarkable But yeah, I think this movie also has like four or five major concerns and since I think you have a very good take on what the larger project is here of what he's trying to say and I will TU off for this in a second But I it felt like in the script I read it was like there are five kind of major plotlines or themes in the movie Which all got an equal amount of attention right and it's sort of like this movie is flittering all around gandledad returning brother problems Yes, new job marriage.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, right. I would say like Not about it. I would say like three parts about the job right like public relations scandal Relationship marriage and like her actual beliefs and aspiration and trying to fight a sort of right stuck in mud sense And then there are the two main family plotlines which are the dad and the brother And it felt like those five things all kind of got equal weight and it was still messy But it felt a little more cohesive to me because I was just like I understand all of these are feeding into the same larger idea And this movie in the final edit puts the thumb on certain things that maybe they thought were more marketable Specifically the kind of more romantic relationship things that does make it feel like what is he trying to say here David your take Well, so my take was that this is a masterpiece and five stars and there's no issues that no that was not my take My take was if Spanglish is his sort of like white guilt movie about like I can't believe right?

Clearly in processing like the situation. I'm the rich guy I have this complicated dynamic with these people I employ and they're real people too and I don't want to you know It minimize that and then just the feel himself like hyperventilating like working himself up like I mean It's just ridiculous right the chef movie spanglish. My favorite chef This is the other unique thing about fain'sell brooks is that like he's not a guy who starts from like I got a great logline I got a hot body right now. It's like I big what am I thinking about what's troubling me right?

That's been like sticking with me lately This is his boomer guilt movie of just like looking at the generations You know beyond him as kids grandkids or whatever and being like we've left you such a mess like You're not prepared for anything because we've like modeled nothing well like both of her father figures in this movie or disasters What he's a real villain Albert isn't so much a villain is this kind of well-meaning you know politician who? It's kind of fucking her over like a right and like exactly she doesn't want to become even though she considers him a friend and a mentor Right and it's like you have to save the world you have to put all this back together He's setting it right at the 2008 where it's like the time of promise But also the time when everything fell apart and the recession happened and everything and he's just like and you know You're supposed to have functioning relationships We never you know we never helped you out with figuring out how to do that and we basically have put it all on your plate L. M. K.

Because it's like this parody of a I don't know how she does a person where it's like yes Not only does she have the bad dad and she lost her mom and she's now she's in this marriage That's not totally working and she's trying to fix it But she's literally becoming the governor and having everything put on her plate and she's like I'm ready for this I want I you know I'm like I'm eager I'm like you know I'm an idealistic person and it's like no the world How do you maintain principle and idealism and the winners no more infrastructure for it that's a big part of it And I also think you know he pointed at least that's a movie in 2008 and I think there are a couple reasons why he does that but I also It felt reading it like there was a little bit more of a direct mirroring between her father scandal and her own and this sort of like James Elbrook's working through Me to an cancellation culture whatever the fuck you want to talk it in a way that I thought was more interesting than most people Who have tried to tackle it because he's not talking about what's actually happening He's talking about like a culture and like a media that has become more obsessed with narrativizing thing and judging things and like putting people under a microscope And this notion of like how terrible things can be downplayed and how innocuous things can become right sticking And if you are in politics and you are and I don't think he's saying like we should just ignore sex handles or whatever But but he is saying if if you are a politician trying to work in a system that is where your job is that precarious Is it does it behoove you to just get cynical and just do things that will keep you in office or do you still try to maintain your idealism? And she's ultimately felled by her you know by that she doesn't succeed in politics A hundred percent an interesting movie, but you're like there are real fucking ideas and ism and like tough questions with no answers That at times he dramatizes very well and other times are sort of like what do you Last time you went to a grocery store, you know, well, it's like watching I think I said this even on this podcast but like in the movie W. E. The Madonna directed where Abbie Cornish goes she's staying with Oscar Isaac and Brooklyn after leaving her husband and she walks under the Marcy J.

Stop you know the overpass and looks at like there's a Hasidic person in a man selling like bird cages out of a store and a chair drips down her eye and it's like oh Madonna has not Talked to a real person in 50 years like it's a little bit of that with Brooks But it's not as it's not as like snooty or I Don't know I don't mind it in his case. It's like your grandpa being like oh, what's you know like kind of using old colloquialism No, you know feels gonna move any by someone who hasn't talked to a person in a decade. This is so much more. Yes Recognizable a thing that and Brooks has talked about it in the couple features I've seen written about this, you know him for this movie You know and we must have talked about this back in the day But his father abandoned the family before he was born he found he has an older sister But his father found out his James Brooks's father found out his mother's pregnant and literally like blue town And he never knew his father after he was about to what like he occasionally would see the dad But had no really and like Brooks has said though Harrelson figure very inspired by that like this sort of bad dad You can't quite shake and also what is what is James Elbrook's done?

Been married a bunch of times had kids with different women gone through divorces, you know clearly not totally lived up to whatever Promise you might have wanted just remarried last year and I'm sure they're getting it on and he's a stallion in the sack to this day No idea and when he comes to do After he comes Yes, he's going immediately to bed Hope to God James Brooks is not listening to this podcast seeing that logo on the big screen I Surround It was truly incredibly there is but there is little that is more Pavlovian than that feeling of yeah Like me starting to love film entertainment. I mean yes, it wasn't filmed but like you know, I mean no This is smart. Yes. Yeah popular media.

Yeah. Yeah, so yeah, he's still thinking about himself Yes, it was all these years later, which is interesting Here's interesting thing about other stuff that I think is a little lost in the soup of this movie And it's it's sort of like when you're talking about what are the animating ideas behind these films at the different points in his career, right? And like James Elbrook's when he makes soup when his movies are like there's lobster there's I was gonna say this more of a chowder Oh, that's what is it is it new England? Okay, so I have Was filmed in Providence.

I kept thinking it was like Michigan. Yeah, the Amtrak station is right across from the state So I've seen that state has them any time But otherwise it's set in a neighborhood of Providence is not where my parents live So I didn't recognize it But what I do recognize is someone who grew up in Boston and spent has spent his entire life living in the northeastern United States There's no way you can fake that that that's like Illinois. I really don't think it's topographically the architecture It was it was a chilly place, you know, it's chilly. It's certainly I mean obviously not Santa Fe But like I just think that like he's kind of dining out on the assumption that a state that looks like this is probably blue But I don't have to say it is true.

That's you know, so it's that kind of like broadly like is this Harrisburg, Pennsylvania? I could be but that's maybe too much of a battleground state So in a way, I'm like just set it in Rhode Island then because that is a solidly blue state with everyone everyone would have to be like You owe 50 grand to the model that's there's a This movie was shot in the last five years and they didn't force him to film it in like Belgrade is even Anomalous hello, I am you a new press stick today But you're just so used to these movies being like this is a story about a specific American city and we clearly shot it outside of the United States of America Yeah, no, I mean it definitely has I love I love a movie that like it's in a place that is you know Like the Gracie logo like like recognizable to me I have a pavlovian response to that kind of home that like she lives in or you know those kind of streets and that particular state House and I don't know I kind of in a way like the anonymity of it even if it forces Julie captured to say and she's the governor of the state She was born and you know like okay. That's not how you would phrase that But she's a Brooks is very interested in career women, right? It is like the majority of his movies are driven by how does a woman have a career sure and I still don't know You know what that's most of the new podcast is me asking else on that How do you still have a career?

But how do you know feels like what it was supposed to be was well female athletes even if you get to the top of your field? That's a really fucking low ceiling and being a professional athlete is an occupation where there is an early retirement age And if you are the best female softball player in the world and you're forced to retire at 36 What is the rest of your life because you don't have MLB millions to bank on is this thing on? Yes, there we go We will talk about this similar themes here in a couple weeks on and I would argue that a volleyball career is even less lucrative Softball although olympics there are Olympics Olympics softball is a little bit too But I don't think it's my people watch it But if someone is focused on their career and now they don't have much to take away from it And they're trying to figure out their love life Maybe out of time delay from other people who are having more of a work-life balance feels like that's what I'm supposed to be about And then the fucking 2008 financial crash happens and James will work It's like actually I want to talk about all of this and that movie is sort of neither fish nor foul because he can't decide what the Main thing he cares about it Well, it's you know, it's my theory about the newsroom and a number of other things that have come since then which is like rich guys Who don't have to do anything else project wise? But they've been at dinner parties at their house and they're talking about an article they have read in the Atlantic Or the New Yorker and they feel that they really have like Talked about it well to their friends at the dinner party and they're like, but wait, no one else in America heard that Maybe I should make a TV show about what I thought about the last 18 months, you know This has a slight tinge or how do you know rather had Justin spades this only has a little bit like I still have an overall deal It's Sony I have a bungalow they would like for me to make something to justify the money They give me to maintain an office here exactly like the stars still want to make my movies, you know I got three a-lister And I've got things to say about this thing from you know They'll let him get into this with a rougher of draft and this movie I felt like they made him prove himself a little bit more while also Perhaps giving him more latitude than most people would get less latitude than he usually gets But I think one of the big anime ideas here David is sort of what you're talking about Which is like if you are so defined by the failure of your father and you try to live your life in the shadow of that in opposition to that Is there a kind of cruel irony of you ending up in a situation closer than you ever imagined you would right?

Yeah, and that's here I am I my marriage is failing I'm right Not to deal with the scandal yes, right the circumstances are very different the behaviors very different her father is defined by being someone Who absolutely acted in the wrong and has taken no responsibility for it for decades and she is the opposite Why is this even a scandal and I may be taking too much responsibility for in a way that is not politically savvy But am I also fucking at my marriage at the same time the way my father did is that good thing or bad thing? I also ended up with a guy that's kind of like her father and that she's extremely selfish kind of a charming ish selfish loser Who's like clearly getting by on being kind of a cutie Yeah, and to the word island of it all I kind of think that loud and in Becky and Baker are supposed to be a little mob Coded like they have a pizza restaurant, but like why cast those people I would have I was not to say loud and who is an actor Really like yeah, it's not the right I think he he's not bad at playing like a weasel But I'll say this and it's not me blaming the performance No, I think this is in a way the most disastrous part of the movie It's because it that feels like it means a lot more runway. It feels like it was the worst hit victim of the cuts Yes, absolutely, but I also think his performance Well, I'm speaking in the art of the film Look James old Brooks gets exactly what he wants out of his actors I'm not throwing loud under the bus here even if he is obviously a man who exists at the absolute center of my dartboard Just for having the exact domestic situation Yeah, yeah Because he's married with a With us you know who's a big Jack loud and fan is a search around his Bobby finger So he has a sera Ronan dartboard We need to be a harpy like two podcasters arrested in bizarre murder plot that actually think about it made no sense There is some broad comedy where Bobby and I are trying to figure out how to make them think that they're breaking up of their Orientation unfortunately Bobby's plot like what involves some sort of clockwork orange conversion therapy I'm predisposed to be bone deep jealous of this man's existence, right? Anytime he shows up in a movie.

I'm like him. Fuck right I don't actually blame for this performance. I think James up It's really misdirected him I think it's really unbalanced and and the limiting of the material hurts it a lot But it's also like I don't think the movie ever makes a compelling case for why she was with him in the first place and reading the script I felt a little bit of tension in is this guy hiding something this guy is so good at charming people in a way that feels genuine He's a little too likable We're what's that covering up and he's kind of guileless and it takes a while to be like no He's strategic about what he's doing here and this movie He's so slippery from the moment you like see him kissing fucking jingly Chris's hand as a teenager Yeah, no exactly. I also think that I don't know if you guys watch the diplomat, but like just I do watch the team I'm sorry.

Oh, we should actually talk about that But just really good Bradley Woodford plays Jenny's husband so he's the first husband and you know, oh it's a man doing that role you know I guess it's a dug him off But I also like Selena Myers I think that this role suffers because I'm like I've seen this before recently You know I think I could sort of buy that she ended up with this guy because she's such a driven person She's got her career that he just like yeah He's nice and like that's all that part of my life to have this kind of nice guy Also, not but I don't have to worry about it But that needs more I don't think they sell him being nice enough I think the movie needs to rest on the idea that she is a person of such clear unbeatable morals that her not being able to see him For what he is I understand people get blinded by certain things and whatever But I'm just like he feels like a Scooby-Doo villain from the beginning I also think that you know way not to like try to make a movie that doesn't exist But like I do think in a way that if you wanted to complicate Elle's character a little further You could be like there was some cynicism in her getting married so young because she was like I can't achieve my political Invitions as a single woman I think that's a better way to frame it like no one quite says anything like that and their flashbacks seemingly cut out I believe that established more the bedrock of what they're really like You know, this was like childhood sweetheart space And we're gonna take over the world together and you know Totally and like what's soured along the way and instead you get like one scene of him being too slick as a teenager Yeah, and then you're like this guy sucks in a crazy way to do it But it's not just what he wears crazy And it's it's the wiggies the wiggies movie But this is also a problem with the film has to rest on the idea that she made a stupid choice That is now jeopardizing her ability to actually affect change in the world that was driven by I can't let my marriage fall apart Right that she was trying to keep him happy That's not a marriage of convenience that it's not a you know You know, you're all you play the part of the good-upstanding guy that she's like I need to reorganize my whole life to make sure that I'm giving him enough attention Which is that a commentary on how women in the workplace are treated or is that in some ways a dim view of a woman? The workplace, you know, we're in the fucking JLB suit now We're in the chowder where you're like things in this movie that feel dramatically sloppy if you actually start pulling apart What's he trying to say here? You're like this is an interesting thing to talk about right? I just got a piece of potato He still has like powers of observation even if you can't totally stick the landing on all of them Like some of these sticks the landing but not the takeoff, you know, it's like such an odd mix I just want to shout out check loud and slow horses you watch to you what slow I have not seen it since the first season In slow horses Gary Oldman plays, you know, the farting spy and like the whole well He plays like the head of this like shitty division of MI5 like the British spy, you know division, right?

And the whole thing is that he's so bedraggled and he's farting all the time and drinking and he's this like garbage man But it's as you watch the show you realize like oh, right? It's a little bit of an act like he knows this means no one takes him seriously. He's smart It's anti-smiley He uses it to kind of get people, you know, and then jack out in plays this spy who ends up in the shitty division because he's the opposite He can't help but enter situation like waving a gun around being like I am a spy I can say today I can say today and he's so good at that. I admittedly have not seen a ton of his work Oh, really?

You haven't seen Well, well, my policeman isn't that him? No, no that was Harry Styles That wasn't called 76 but was called 87 or if you're talking about the film 76 which is a film Yeah, no, that's not what you're talking about. What was that? I know is it 74?

Yes, that's not him 71 is that him got there? No, it's Jack O'Connell that you're talking about this sort of IRA drama movie That was Jack O'Connell a jack Loudon Emerge, I mean, you know, we've seen little parts in British movies and stuff small part in Dunkirk He's in Dunkirk. Yeah, I would say more than a small part in Dunkirk It was kind of like who's that fucking hottie driving a plane like alongside? You know Tom Hardy, okay, right?

And he then he parachutes me. He isn't 71. He's just not the lead Oh, you're right. He will I mean he's not even in the like he's the like 17th lead Who's that?

O'Connell's lead that way who's that fucking hottie driving a plane is what I said at the end of train dream Nice nice I just say that about Joel. Yeah, he's He's in fighting with my family, which you have oh, yeah, and he's good I like that movie a lot and he's I think quite good in playing her brother who's like, you know the original aspiring wrestler I saw that but like I never saw denial. I didn't see the war in many series. No, I never saw I didn't see Mary Queen of Scots He's fine in that that's where he met certia.

Obviously. He's a good at it right. He's a somewhat villainous in that I didn't see benediction The thing where you're like okay, so this guy's like I know that's like extra sadness or sweetness to it because it was turnstavie's like Re-engaging with gay stuff for the first time a long time and then he died and he finally did it like also It's like oh turnstavie's made a movie about seek for you so soon who was a bridge for one better and who's a poet? You're like, oh, okay, so is this like is this like an elegic sad movie?

No, no, no, it is about gay guys talking shit Yeah, it's like the caddiest movie of that. You're all so mean But he's really good in that he plays all around in the rings of power only in one episode He's the original Sauron because the whole thing with sarin is that he keeps turning into new hoties I'm sorry people so he's young Sauron who Fox well I mean not that the old so the new Sauron is they're all young and hot but yes, you know someone keeps you know being like I'm just a got it. I'm a cool guy on Instagram Wait, oh Frank Hoffner highly recommends Jack. I was not a sarin, but he's sort of your type Really likes the Netflix deal.

Yeah But yeah, a lot of the big ones I've missed and I know he's always on these lists of like Is the thing right that he's consistently he's always I feel like one of these shortlisted guys for like the big parts that are coming up Right, I do feel like he's good at earnestness and he's bad casting in this for that reason Yeah, where he's trying to play a little too slick comes off as like transparently And I don't want to say I'm eating but I do think it's hard and I think that Emma Mackey suffers from this too It can be hard to do comedy while also trying to juggle an accent. Yep, David Yes, you look like a man who doesn't know that fast-growing trees is America's largest and most trusted online nursery with thousands of trees and Plants and over two million happy customers. I had no idea Yeah, well David they have all the plants your yard or home needs including fruit trees privacy trees flowering trees shrubs And house plants my home is littered with all of these and they're all grown with care and guaranteed to arrive healthy It's like your local nursery, but anywhere you live with more plants than you'll find anywhere else and whatever you're looking for fast-growing trees I hope you find options that actually work for your climate space and lifestyle for me all inclusive I'll take any kind of tree you've got Griffin. I know you're you know a green thumb.

Yeah, and I got ten green fingers Yeah, I think you're gonna agree with me on this that you know You go to a garden center and you just find it so overwhelming and inconvenient You took the personal statement out of my mouth Ben. That is how I feel and then here's the other thing you try to hire some landscapers It's too expensive. I am so tired of spending every day of my life on the phone with landscapers listen with fast-growing trees It's just so reassuring that you know you're gonna order plants and they're guaranteed to be healthy and to thrive But let me guess when the trees arrive it takes a really long time for them to grow They have their life and thrive guarantee it promises your plants are right happy and healthy No green thumb required just quality quality plants you can count on plus get ongoing support from trained plants experts Who can help you plan your landscape choose the right plan to learn how to care for them every step of the way Can you imagine if Wally had a promo code for fast-growing trees that movie would have been sold in every way to And it existed right now They have great deals on spring planting essentials up to half off and select plants and listeners of our show get 20% off their first purchase when using the code check at check out that's an additional 20% off better plants I better growing up past growing trees calm using code check it check out fast growing trees calm code check now is the perfect time to Plant let's go together use check to save today offers value for limited time terms and conditions may apply So here's my question. Who is Emma Mackie?

Who is this sex education? We've never seen that either Yeah, so basically the Butterfield Margarobie got a Temu clone made and that's always been the thing that Oh, why is how is there this other actress that looks that much like her sex education is her main project and that has run for like Fucking five or six seasons. I think it might have sort of petered You know these hit never like five I think four four okay, but I don't like that like she doesn't kind of petered out I also feel like there's a lot of cast turn around that show But she basically stayed as one of the consistent elements for a while She's you know all the seasons along with a subutter field and Amy Lou would uh-huh who's that then and you know Jillian Anderson and Doctor who's in there and you know lots of people and that they're learning sex education and she and Is also in Babylon with Marco Rompi or is Emma It's tomorrow weaving because the other one they say Robbie and Emma Mackie isn't Barbie is fake Barbie, right? Okay, I never saw the Emily Bronte movie that's that's your joke on it was Francis O'Connor I mean I wish you a bit future.

I never saw She's in death on the Nile. I did see that but I'm gonna be honest with you guys I'm gonna mess up for sure. I think she's actually kind of a big part in death in the matter She's like the young lover. Yeah, but I know this part where one of the actresses is something about the Nyalland champagne I'll say this she has very few credits like you actually look at it and it's like her first movie is 2020 She's in one two three four five six seven movies total She's like me nine years old like she's playing younger than Ella Mackie and then I would say it reads this was shot Two years ago.

I mean this goes back to my original question of who are they casting as the lead? This is built to be a Deborah Winger holly Hunter type thing, but this movie has the three timelines Well over 50% of the movie is her in her mid 30s. Yeah, I think and there's a little bit of teen and a little bit early 20s And they cut most of the early 20 stuff out there was more college stuff in the script I read well Because at present there is already way too much flashback stuff because I think looks so crazy I think all the flashback stuff should go I set for the stuff at the beginning is all unique Which is really profound like I'm really got me but in the script I read that stuff was struggled back to many times Mm-hmm. There was more sort of going back and forth It's and part of what I think is lost I will say even though I don't think it worked dramatically part of what the movie doesn't communicate Well is that the idea of the Woody Harrelson scandal is that it became a news story Which makes you get us the briefest sense of that that like he's about to go face the media that he's happening in the first scene that Like the family needs to prepare for on top of the Monika gate, but it was the kind of thing that became a weird news story that captured people for a couple weeks of like Oh, this high-level person was doing all this bad shit And so it's not like he still remembered by name necessarily But like the level of exposure and attention in her childhood or you know certainly starting in her teen years has like absolutely affected The way this person behaves in every area in opposition to it And that she's aware of the fact that this legacy is attached to her that people know her as the daughter of that guy As she is now fighting to try to like fix our broken culture And I think that doesn't totally come across in the movie like her dad saw and then she grows up Well cuz the dad stuff feels like we're taking brief detours to a different movie That's about that right where Woody Harrelson is a much bigger part and Jamie Lee Curtis's relationship to everybody becomes much more Parent than it is in this version of the movie dad stuff also feels way cut down It was clearer that it was a sort of like making the amends I need you to grant me this because I'm trying to forgive myself in my life I also think that there would be if you flesh that dad character that dynamic out more that backstory out more It would explain some of Ella's goody-two shoes Is him that throw away line about how she's a vehemently opposed legalizing marijuana Yes, that was one of the planks of her platform when she ran is like wait No, that totally tracked me because of the 2008ness It's like that's how much the world has changed that that was considered so radical back then a progressive Dennel-wrapped would have run on that no one fucking supported legalizing mean in 2008 like it was truly seen as like You're gonna sound like a you're gonna live out hippie or whatever.

Yeah, God. Do you remember? I watch it all the time when the former governor of New Mexico Who's a Republican who became a libertarian fucking forget his name ran for like the libertarian presidential nomination? I think in 2016 and he's at like the libertarian And he's at the libertarian parties like presidential debate right with like the other whack Just people milling around with screaming and someone someone's like the next question is do you support?

You know people being licensed to drive right and like it goes from like every like no like what what next a license to make toast? You know I was like they go through and the Gary Jones like I mean, I think maybe you should have to perform some sort of What am I supposed to say that interrupted by a giant bullet? Sorry, I know I think you're right though that like what you don't get in this movie is that she has so wildly overcorrected Right, she's why no one can stand her Come rage it and it's not just experiential But it's also like her trying to fight the optics of how she's gonna be perceived every time she enters a room Yeah, do you know that she's the daughter of that guy who 20 years ago? And not just that but that she's young she's this prodigy She needs to overcompensate for being a young prodigy and all that shape turmoil worldview And then on top of that it shaped a defensiveness in how she lives in the world to try to be able to push her moral World view through without ever bending Albert Brooks is too old to play your dad Right when I but is there a world right where it makes sense that to have Brooks be the dad and Harrelson be the cover I read the script they announced the cast I went fully shit Albert Brooks is gonna crush it as the dad Right and Harrelson makes a lot of sense makes a ton of sense is a kind of like folksy governor people like people like him But also there's an element of life because he's a little too much into showman and he's just kind of like a corporate politician now And I don't think Brooks is bad in this movie.

Yeah, and he nails all his scenes But he's a little bit I was kind of like why do people vote for him? He just kind of seems boring like he's fine I here's another thing that I liked about the idea of Brooks playing this part not just that obviously like It's an inverse of his broadcast news character But that it's almost like a souring of that guy in that like I think the Jack Loudon character is an unsuccessful attempt to make another William right where you're like ultimately this guy is a problem Yeah, and yet it's really hard to resist his charms or a little bit jeff Daniels in terms of a different kind of exactly No, I think truly yeah, and watching it. I was like who could have pulled this off He's obviously never gonna make this career move at this point in his arc But like if it's Glenn Powell, you know There you go Glenn Powell is so good at playing kind of a ship-back if you know god I can't fucking hate this guy Which is what you need him to be that I don't think I'm kind of guy who would genuinely think that even though his wife is lieutenant governor Well now governor that he's actually the real celebrity yes And without making any larger statement about this you put Woody Harrelson in this type of role and as you said many times on this podcast David You're a celebrity. I love him He's so much fun almost anytime he shows up in anything and yet interested in this movie you're like of course this guy's fucking everyone There's no tension to that right?

Yeah, like a whole Woody Harrelson thing is like come on. What are you gonna do? Madamie? There's no shock and disgrace there, but with Brooks with Brooks It would be this kind of warping of a broadcast news type guy who in ascending to career power.

Yeah takes abuse Yeah, yeah out of a like vindictiveness of women used to never pay attention to me Right. I think part of the problem with a lot of this in general is that like I think the movie is afraid of becoming too dark and cynical Even though it is set in the most dark and cynical like well the beginning of a really dark and cynical era But also just like politics in general since forever have been that way the movie's basically about that battle between a cynicism and optimism I don't think we see nearly enough of the cynicism. No, you have the Julie cavern or lying early on where she's like this Sorry, it's set in 2008 remember when people still used to get along. It's like well.

What are you talking about? I mean like it's it's a glib line. Yeah, it's overly reductive But it also feels like part of why he chose to set it then I think he once again wanted to talk about the fallout of the financial collapse Yeah, and what that did to the citizens of this country and the politicians who were not thinking about them I think I know he's making some comment on Clinton where he's like oh, she had all these policy ideas But like she wasn't likeable enough and it's like sure that's maybe true But also that's not why she lost that her that also an obama optimism of is this guy gonna come in and actually fits everything And then you're like he starts to play the game but it's really hard fantasy terrible decisions Yeah, is this fantasy of what she does of like rather than play the game? She cuts the deal of like okay I'll go away if you and we don't really know what this is but like do everything I want I'm just late of we happen a thing that was also very spelled out in the script and has long dialogues scenes where she's like going over What the points are and everyone's being like oh my god, why are you?

I know that in the movie there is but it gets a little yada yada yada yada I'm actually this really was called one cat. I mean that's But like I found the scenes where she's like you know excitedly trying to explain policy to whoever Like the idea is cute of like everyone being like, you know, oh, yes Yeah, I think it needs more of that of the idea of like actually whole boring like it's just this brook shit Or he's like I want like five minutes of policy discussion that Fox was clearly like cut cut cut cut I just think it's boring like it's just like You know like it's what the characters don't like she's haranguing you were you like yeah, I agree It's good to help moms or I could have dentists or whatever You know like it's also what's tricky about this part is it's it's going for the holly-huncher thing of like God she's so No, I can't be fucking get out of her own way with this shit And yet you're still on her side I like the gag of you know the legislative meeting where it's like the Sun has sat and everyone's asleep and she's like I'm gonna do this yeah like that worked for me and passing the notes saying mention me and then please don't mention That was funny. That's the best bit of the whole thing there's stuff like that That's good, but I think has to be several for this movie is fundamentally a mistake. Okay.

Who should you have cast? I was doing this mental exercise, right? And I always think about like the generation of actresses who basically didn't get to have a movie like this like I'm a stone Taylor made for it although I'm a stone got more comedy since I Mean thinking about the people who truly didn't get anything close to this I was like Alice and Bree Gillian Jacob Gillian Jacob sprang to my you know friend of the podcast talk on him is Lonnie Yeah, people who are like both heavyweight dramatic actors and have incredible comedic touches But like so much of their best work had to be on TV can do screwball with death Which is what you really want? You know you need someone who's like got a double-barreled shotgun of like total control And I think that I'm a kid actor But I think that she seems overwhelmed by the juggling that this thing requires But I'm a kid is overwhelmed Have you seen the day she's having but also why is this movie casting based on like well It'll be more believable as a teenager than if we hire someone early 30s and you're like you do that truly thick It has to be like truly that that was I'll just say that was the explanation I got when they cast right right and just cast the younger actor to play the underperce Yeah, whatever Well the brother has to be three different actors at different ages or whatever but they want one person to play her in all the Scenes which I guess makes more sense if there's more of those other scenes But obviously they should have limited those scenes at the script level look you clearly you didn't like Emma Mackie I was kind of quite charmed by her why do I keep saying okay because the movie's called Ella Mackay, right?

Okay, um, I thought she was alright The movie is putting an unfair kind of a task on her shoulders. It's a lot It's big. I mean look it crushed a Titan like tailiony. Yeah, great Very different kind of part of it's big verbose like you have to hold a lot of ideas that are sort of ineffable You know hard to hold it all stylized and be charming and be this and be that stylized dialogue Although I think the brook systems are kind of at a minimum and they are there's more grounded Yeah, but I think I think a lot of it is just is just the age because this movie isn't framed as the crazy story of how like a child Became the governor of a state right?

It's supposed to be like she's pretty young for a governor, but it's a an aberration to give people the plot of Elmick Hey, maybe they didn't go see it. Why not? Oh She's the lieutenant governor of her state behind an experienced governor who she used to be the chief of staff too Clearly she was a prodigy chief of staff given her age and because he gets a secretary job in the US cabinet He resigns why he has to resign day of ease That's ludicrous. No one would do that but one that's required for the movie in real life You'd wait to be confirmed before he fucking resigned And so she gets the governorship thrust upon her so very surprisingly an idea I like is here's a person whose platforms are too radical and is not good at like Comforting people she she had to run for public elections.

You would never get it Exactly. I'll be brook says she's not someone who's good at campaigning. No, she's not gonna PR She's not gonna be on TV. She's not radical, but she's a technocrat who has all this kind of like good government stuff She wants to do that's boring and she doesn't know how to horse trade for it And obviously you know there there of a different affiliation But it's like if you have an AOC or a mondani who doesn't have the PR skills sure right right?

Like the only way in which they're ever actually getting to a seat of power is through some weird fluke moment like this And he says like congratulations They're gonna run you out of town But for at least a little while you are the governor right and what are you gonna do with that power now? That's the main plot also She's married her marriages sort of on the rocks and she was having lunch dates with her husband in the state office building and it turns out That's a misuse of government funds technically so she's worried she's gonna get in trouble for that cuz a reporter found out about it And also her dad Woody Harrelson who had a scandal in the family when she was young Was a problem after died was had it didn't get to it at all but it was basically caught lines with a bunch of his patients he's a serial philanderer right he has decided to reemerge to ask forgiveness Yeah, okay, Jamie Lee Curtis plays her brassy aunt who her mother died shortly after the scandal of cancer Jamie and a rater the brother the sister of her shitty dad became her den mother and her voice of reason and yeah Camille Nanjiani plays her bodyguard, you know security detail guy who she likes and spike Fern an actor I don't really know no has very few credits. He's a young British man plays and British Another why is it so many Brits plays her brother who seems to be like sort of a goraphobic Possibly other things he's divergent in some way, but has become like a computer whiz quote unquote Who's become maybe a millionaire because he's sort of a sports gambling expert He just sits inside all day on his computer on some way He also somehow managed to bag I owe fumble I owe that'll happen about a year ago And he's been ruminating on it ever since and that's the ball She's seemingly waits in her apartment like a board. Yeah That's the Brooks is writing is when he's trying to explain how he's sort of asked He has to be a girlfriend and then are they all freaked out because it's all just like circuitous It's a ten page scene of like dolling monologues that is such a kind of classic broxy highwire act And I truly was like in real time like it felt like watching a boxing match where I was like okay that one landed that one Whiff, you know and it's coming so fast and furious and I'm like is he pulling this off or not it's hard to tell It's really hard to tell it's sometimes when his dialogue is with and you're like okay You're like the max-el-vide and you're like you have to sort it out later whether it actually made sense The idea is that the family history in the same way that it kind of like turned her into a terminator broke him That him being at a younger age and not having a sense of self at the time that he has to watch his mother die and his father become a public issue All this sort of stuff they say they shipped him off to military school because dad didn't know how to deal with him Ela kind of raised him but then she kicked starts her career that he is just kind of crumbled as a witch is also You know in terms of Brooks wanting to you know make manifest things that were spoken about at a dinner party He's like I heard that young manner in trouble.

Yeah a little bit They live on computers now a little bit and I think a little bit of the like a curse of the gifted child thing of like was a pressure put up on This kid who is so sharp at such a young age that now he lives in terror I'm not living up to what was and protected for him other flashbacks We see him, you know as a kid starting with all that yes candle. Yes, so it's a lot It's a lot for you didn't mention that beke and baker plays a richly bejeweled pizzeria doughy end They make an additional three hundred thousand dollars a year by watering down the tomato So that's their that's there that's a really cool seat right like big beef with them The document a collective about the Romanian Hospital that watered down the intercept is the same exact I'm a maker is kind of on fire in this I'm a performance but yeah, she's falling into the pizza I'm gonna movie all year like it's like you're like suddenly cutting into like this like what what feels like Jane Austen's mafia Like is this like a parody of mob movies done in the middle of a little bit of a video? Other favorite movie I love you. It does.

Yeah, like oh, this is like a fucking like It's a real goomba Hey, I'm Italian you can tell cuz I have an apron on we didn't get enough time dealing with the pizza business again Right, maybe this movie should be a I got a nice minutes seven hour on watery mr. Robert mr. Roberts hate and christian Oh, it's about the little you think it's about the little Italy in Toronto rival family pizza restaurants, and how is that movie? Oh boy, that's what I'll say about that one.

Oh Cuz you know when I see Hayden Christensen, I think He's 38 and he's playing like a 21 year old. Yeah is the rivalry between the two pizzerias like hey We here we make thin crust and that dirty family their crust is a little thinner than ours Yeah, and then they so Hayden and while they have to do pod races of course, you know when that to fall in love over pizza The only way to really settle it. Yeah, it's some quite a movie. Yes.

I think the way sounds great. It's streaming check it out I think both the very much about pizza the nature of Woody Harrelson's performance and the way his characters deployed in this movie and especially because We said the first ten minutes of the movie are really front loading This is the defining event of this family that will have the ripple effects on all of them forever, right? And that is a thing that was like the first trailer did not convey at all I remember when friends would text me after the trailer be like what the fuck is this movie about? I'm like they're hiding the ball is entirely about sex candles everything in this movie spins out of how do people react to sex candles And how does it affect like the civic understanding of like public figures, right?

But also our personal relationships and all these sorts of things So if you're like going to see this movie being like it's like I don't actually does it the first ten minutes I think to a general audience any audience are gonna be like what the fuck is this movie when is it? And then every time he shows up in the movie after that it almost feels like he's like Paul Bettany in a beautiful mind Like it feels magical like he's a ghost of a memory haunting he leaves the family and then gets killed by Anton Shiggers Right, so he's a ghost. Yeah, he we're all making this movie sound bad when in fact It's delightful romp, but I think we are alternating between making it sound better than it is and worse than it is It's another element of the movie that I could almost stand to lose because Those scenes don't really you know link in to the main plot that much outside of the larger like again She's sort of been failed by the role models in her life This almost feels like where she's like I'm in the middle of scandal she's like just one second let me get here for a second What do you hear? I was like, please baby?

I'm sorry. She's like, I'll see you later. He's like, okay, and then she leaves again You know, he's like he's appearing in this movie in a like Jean Carlo Esposito in Brave New World and let's say we're president Red Hulk Right, but where you're like this is late reshoots and because it's stuck into scenes that already existed She has to like turn a corner talk to Woody Harrelson who interacts with no other primary characters and then she returns to her previous scene the very ending of this movie is like her resolving her political career and then he just happens to be standing seven steps down the Block and it's like so can we resolve that father and I mean and she is like no Yeah, which I kind of like that like it's not a movie about her learning like okay You know what everyone's flawed and like maybe your flawed too She's like no, you're bad like don't need you don't need you in my life And I like that the only thing she wants at him when he's like please place place like my new wife So psychiatrist and she says I have to make amends with you or whatever You know and she's like I will talk to you if you promise not to bother your son because you're troubling him And he's like okay, and she's like promise okay fine. I'll see you later like that is all she really wants from him It's like don't bug What's his name Casey because he needs to learn how to walk to a bakery that I owe lives above and you like fucked him up So I'm trying to help him right right undo the damage And then once again once in a while she gets in the car and shafts with Camille for five minutes And I'm like this is interesting.

I guess this is going somewhere, but I assume any audience members are like what the fuck was that? You know what's that now right and and Camille also is like not an inappropriate age for how old Ellen McKay the character is supposed to be right? But he's a little older than Emma you're right which I do think is like an issue and you're like he is 20 years older than her And he's supposed to like reading it. I really they were you know Looks younger than he is yeah, she looks older than she is like right But it does like start to feel like a weird power imbalance thing in like both directions, you know where I think like in theory There's an interesting tension to This guy who's so thoroughly trimmed by her but knows there was a line He cannot cross even if he sees like this marriage is bad news and I wish he was with someone who respected her right?

He's not gonna right I have a professional obligation But when he's 20 years older than her and she's in the back seat of the car like stoned you're like is he about to take advantage of her But also the bad marriage is not a parent enough. I know I know I know he's just he's kind of a jerk I maybe have but I feel like the real jerk turn where all of a sudden it's like oh, he's gonna fuck her over And she's gonna like whatever that's like that feels like something got cut. Yeah, it happens It doesn't play enough like it's it's like it should be really portrayed as so fucking evil. He has ruined her He betrayed her.

Yes out of out of basically like spied and kind of feeling slighted by her and even what he's asking for is preposterous Well, I think which and it's done in a way like kind of like light and just like being like isn't he silly He's literally being like I'm gonna be co-maker with or co-governor right? I'm not a fucking thing. No, that's it's really made me mad I'm like fuck this guy especially if the backstory the character isn't like they met as like poly-sized students together and they hold That same values and she became the candidate Air to paint so fortunate. What does he care about being a shit?

He's got way more power than any governor And I think for the source I think that character to work he has to be so dialyce that he doesn't know what he's doing is fucked up rather than This right? He's making Yes, he'd either be like yeah calculating equally politically ambitious guy or is still good at pretending He's a normal dog badly bumbling to I bought that he was stupid that he tips off the reporter by being stupid right and pays off the reporter Because he's stupid and then when he's like so you will you give me more cred and more to do and she's like no And he's like well then I'm just gonna have to divorce you in states your fault And she's like okay, he's doing it because he's like well I guess I just have to do that now. I guess and then there's a scene where it implies that like Becky and Baker is like I'm only a bad and you're like well wait, but that's not necessary It's interesting I feel like you will hear often filmmakers and screenwriters talk about you know Where did the idea for this movie come from and they're like, you know, it's funny at first I was trying to write something like this and then when I got 30 pages in I went like oh this other thing I discovered is more interesting and you rewrite the script and you take out the original animating idea Yeah, that's the social part you take get out James Oh Brooks is the guy where every time he makes a new discovery he adds it on top of the original thing and you saying like Could you just drop the woody heralds and think right? It's so clear to him where he's like well, that was the whole idea That's where this all started I hear you about it He wanted to make a movie about a really good breakfast image and then he discovered Spanish feels like it But I mean It's that the flashback thing which obviously some of them are shed they's also it's like sure I think James Oh Brooks if you were Kelly from in Craig and you gave him a screenplay would give you The sort of smart like I know how movies were made and I know how movies work and what's successful the smart notes to help you streamline your script It's same story with Wes Anderson and Cameron Craig Yes, the guys he mentored in the 90s and like whereas this you know if I went up to him and I said like hey Your movie keeps stopping in his fucking tracks with these flashbacks that completely killed momentum He would be like no, no, but you don't understand like you know like that's all part of this, you know idea I have right, you know, he wouldn't maybe take his own note It was kind of what's magic about J's old Brooks is something like this movie was what was apparent reading it to me of like huh?

These threads all don't really come together. It's not like by the end you go like oh fuck It was all building up to you know this moment of character catharsis or whatever it is and like maybe that's a thing He'll find while shooting it or he'll find any edit and instead It just feels like rather than excising certain elements from it entirely certain elements have just been minimized so much that you're like Why is this you can still not I don't want to be a just but I feel like a 35 year old James El Brooks He's like a bit more nimble to be on set and be like alright This isn't working. Let's try this. Well, where's 80 whatever your old James is like?

I don't I wrote it? Let's just shoot it in the home Also, maybe the area where no disrespect to Emma Mackie You need someone who is going to be so comfortable in being a lead of a movie and has carried a movie of the size on their shoulders before and is tested in Like comedy and rom-com and all this sort of stuff where they're also being a little bit of a taste gauge rather than like what do you want James? You know and I understand the you didn't see the interviews that the cast has been doing for this movie And they're like why do I agree to it because it's James El Brooks To the end of the earth people will still be like well I'm interested Jamie like Curtis is like since the 80s I've been like when is this guy gonna give me a call and for someone who has been a bit she said that I read show I read an interview with Brooks in THR where he basically it's a paragraph a quote paragraph about each of like the 10 stars of the film And he comes Jamie the Curtis one of the best people I've ever met in my life Has he met like two to three people has he met tailione? I'm simply referencing that apparently Jamie the Curtis can be but I'm a tough cookie guys I'm not saying one of the worst people in the world James El Brooks was a magic worker for a time, right?

And it's like if you're an actor whether you're new or you're a hyper-established legendary movie star if you hand yourself over to him Good things are gonna come from and you look at a script and it's just pages and pages of dialogue and dialogue Like I'm doing a play but I'm getting paid way more, you know It's like that must be so wonderful You know and even when he whiffed and you're like okay, so they're danger zones It might not work every time but it's worth the risk and we'll have we'll have an interesting time on set trying to find the piece And if it doesn't get found in the edit then whatever we at least got fulfilled on set Right. I mean his first four films get like 10 acting nominations and three wins. Yeah, it's pretty impressive. Yeah I'll do anything about those right.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, in terms of endearment of course one best Actress and disappointing actor and got to two additional writing bombs broadcast news three acting nominations sadly one zero I'll do anything got 17 acting nominations. It goes up and it gets got three noms and two wins. Yeah, pretty good Yeah, that's quite a track record spanglish.

I was nominated for war crimes You know my old review of letterbox is like if you made this now you go to jail or whatever I took a joke your view but the problem with letterbox is people just will find reviews and they'll be like why did you say this? I'm like kidding. It's like, you know, it's silly what about logs are what happen in between sandwiches, you know? You know what spanglish doesn't want to you either That's fine Yeah, okay, then you don't want me we walk out of the theater.

You said I like you either. Yeah, you tell me spanglish We walk out of the theater. You say you loved it. You nailed the pose outside Nailed it I love it and then you got more sober and you looked at me and you said I'm really gonna have to do some thinking before we record this episode Yeah, and I went what way and you went I don't know It's just interesting that I clicked so much with these late period James Elbrook's movies And I haven't quite figured out what it is that's speaking to me.

I'm out of touch white guy is that the I think for this Okay, what's been said as means of an explanation as if you guys I'm Sam Simon Sun, right? I'm Martin Prince and we're baked into a contract ever ever end you guys have a notice I'm sitting on a golden throne with a cape your solid gold house in your rocket car Chester Jalen quick I love into the local politics of it all because my dad was heavily involved in local politics in New Jersey and in my town and I just I really love that aspect of the film So I don't know just enjoyed that yeah That part of her character that by being really like wanting to make a change and wanting to do good in a hyper local way I also think to go back to him being so interested in telling stories of how does a woman actually maintain a career of consequence in a society that's not necessarily built to be conducive to that Activates your kiki's delivery service thing of like a person out there who really cares about what they care about and want to do something And the whole world's kind of pushing back on them You you do really spark to that kind of underdog especially when that's driven by like an optimism and a humanism right right and I support that and they push through adversity And they come out on the other end and it doesn't always work out You know the in the exact way or the dream way they would want it the ideal way But I kind of like that you're seeing the character find this compromise future for themselves running their own Non-profit and it's a little hokey even to like see cavernor and kamele working like I don't know But I just it's a warm bath ending it's a warm bath movie like at this point watching this movie in the year 2025 almost feels like you're watching like An SNL digital short parody in this type of movie It feels more pastiche than a real thing even what you're talking about of like the idea of casting too familiar faces in a big budget studio Dramedy where the comedy isn't set piece driven and it's like how can you throw the lines back and forth and how well can you like hold a close up? And shit like that it does there is a warm bath feeling to this which is why I think we're all like a little protective of How hard are people gonna trash this thing this sounds corny, but this is the kind of movie It's a kind of a kind of a well a thousand right laws points That it wants you to care about people because they're people And it wants to be care about its story because it's a story about people and that is like in such short supply Because everyone has to have like an added thing or I mean to be honest Like I sort of issue grafted onto them or a power grafted onto them And this is just like the kind of movie where it's like well, it's a family don't we care about families and you see power and it mean like The powers of Superman. No power book for the book of But it's something you said earlier kiki's in Times Square has a delivery delivery That's great Greek.

No, it's it's kiki dawns and just a clam Deliver their base. I saw some of the better the other day when the spirit awards were nominated nominations were announced and kircurson dawns Which is exciting got a nomination for roof man. Hell. Yeah, and I saw it one quote that was like I think totally serious being like I thought she retired and was like what she was that a story?

No, I mean She took a bit of a break, but at this point that was a kind of a while ago Not for an Oscar three four years she talked about that all the parts she got offered post power Pissed her off where it was a lot of suffering wives Right and so she didn't make another movie until civil war because that was the first thing she got that right right right? This is different. Yeah, and roof man is also different So good and but I think she's very much like I'd rather not work than do shit I don't want to do unless you're willing to fucking pay me right put me in a super-super movie I got kids to pay yeah, she's kind of the Michelle Williams vibe Yeah, I think James L brooks when he is in the pocket his magic is to your point then being able to have very very lovable characters do deeply deeply unlikable things and having kind of contemptible characters when you over at times and in That way he can like capture the messiness of like people are complicated, you know And when he gets that right it really feels so wise and well observed and that he can handle those tonal shifts You know, I mean like broadcast news is the peak of this for me the scene where Albert Brooks goes from the kind of charming version of a ducky monologue to actually being evil and Yet the movie isn't framing him as like well, obviously this guy should go to jail You know and I feel like this movie is a little more cut and dry in terms of who the bad guys are and who the good guys are Yeah, and I was kind of trying to develop this theory of like you watch terms you watch broadcast news and you're like terms obviously like what you can You can sell that on like well aurora is a really larger than life character But I don't know you watch that movie now and you're like no It's a movie that's just about a family and about a mother and a daughter who have these whatever broadcast news is just about the people who work in broadcast news And then it gets a little bit then like I'll do anything whatever but then it gets it gets more character Like high kind of concept character driven and I think that's where as much as I like that movie I think everything post struggles to kind of regain that it's just a movie about blank totally Totally, you know, yes, and this is trying to return us to it's about it's a movie about people in local politics It's it's the closest he's gotten back to what he's really good at in such a long time And my excitement for this movie was like really being held in moderation of just like a i'm just so happy He's back be having read it. There are elements of this that excite me But i'm just like if this thing has moments, I will be happy I've talked about another episode, but I like gave how do you know a rewatch in the last year to be like now that we don't get this kind of movie Well, I'd be warmer to it and there's the occasional defender it is repellent I think I come around to so many the late period crow movies that I'd struggle with and I agree with you And how do you know just fucking claims off the backboard and it like makes a breakout in height And when people were like it's got like a couple performances or like some lines are good or this scene is good or whatever The one scene where he's filming Catherine Han in the boss.

No, I'm saying about LMK. Oh, yeah I started getting so excited where I was like if any percentage of this is in a good pitch I will be thrilled and like some of it is yes I I did not hate it by any means I wanted more for it, but didn't expect more from it if that makes any sense I just like I think I mean I'm I'm leaning more towards Ben side of things where it's like this is just like a nice kind of movie I wish that existed more and sure it has flaws But like again I'm dreading the snark about it because come on like and also like Disney is dumping it so hard that now like You know a week before it's wide release at the time we're recording this Uh, the like Simpson's is marketing this and that doesn't feel like Disney's strategic synergy That feels like Jamesel Brooks three months ago with like yeah, yeah, it feels like it's the email you send your friend sink and you come to my show Yeah, right they're not giving the house now. He's like oh, hey for the time any support So can I use the one thing I do control and now margin Lisa are standing outside the theater being like it may feel good You know and like I mean she's a bit of a Lisa right like totally no more than a bit of a Lisa What which like that's a great Analog or what this character is in the best case scenario Right where you're like even when she's being strident or annoying There is something so human to her in her vulnerability You know in her trying to figure out how to manage being a person in the world And I don't think like the movie completely fails on that front, but it doesn't find the magic of I'm not so better. Well, there's nothing peppery about her like there is holly hunter and or debra winger or A little cup of teia a little cup.

I mean that's that's a cup of straight pepper Yeah, not even pepper in water. Just pepper to the broom god bless her This one was coming out next although her purple. Her was more successful than us. She became secretary.

Yeah, that is so true She did um this was coming out next weekend right next Friday the 17th. No, there's a well When does this episode air? Yes this episode airs on the 14th. Why do I think it was okay?

Okay, sure Um so it's coming out two weeks before avatar one week before avatar god Um, so you know coming out this weekend at the box offices Five nights at freddies two which seems like it's just going to stroll to like 50 million dollars a friend Tell me a funny thing about that what he said it's interesting that there are about 20 negative reviews out for it Uh that are on you know universal owned rotten tomatoes and yet they haven't posted a score yet Yeah, they didn't do the the like the thing where the numbers like what's it gonna be what's it gonna be that it's like 12 It's weird. I'm seeing here's the first movie to be a hundred percent freddy Yeah, we've been given a score of Shelby. Oh, oh god. Oh, look what do they just create a different like oh, it's not tomato.

It's a it's a hudgerson um So five nights with freddies zutopia and wicked I guess we're all hanging around there's nothing else In the box office mixed until avatar right like there's no other big no because players swinging in am I right that avatar and Marty supreme are the same weekend you're wrong avatar is the 19th along with of course. Oh, no. No, no, no along with um, well Is this thing but that's a really smarty is getting like very limited 19 foot marty is watching the widest christmas and that's also an account And spun bomb indeed and the house made I think is also coming up the avatar weekend is Is uh, projected to make a lot of my that things crushing and pre-sale really? It's like you is that all it is and just kind of programming This is the kind of stuff that people want to see sending swinging and not sure dower movies about abuse boxers I do find it fascinating.

I mean it speaks to the we all live in different realities thing now We're like I'm someone who's fucking on the prowl for movie shit And trying to stay tapped into everything and there's not a single iota of marketing for the house made that has hit me I would agree with you. I'm not seeing much I'm not seeing shit online and like they're clearly selling it successfully to the people It's I guess so what were you gonna say Richard? I was just gonna say that um, you know the the people well, we were talking about the softback about pillion But the people that are seeing house made ads with the people who want to see really, you know, I mean But I'm just assuming box office wise that this movie is going to be the sort of soul wide release and open like number eight You know what I mean? Like it'll be like five nights of friday's in surtobe and wicked continue to do pretty good element K also opened it is this thing that is Um spinning the industry into a state of panic that is entirely self-created where they're just like well if element K is the only wide release that weekend I guess it will have to do okay And you're like that is some fucking 1997 thinking and there was even still like faint traces of that in like 2017 People are inevitably gonna go to the movie theater.

So right But there you will go they check the show times on friday and go we'll see whatever my sister when we were in Rhode Island In summers we would just call the repeating phone answering service And write down the times and whatever fit we saw that's why I saw like the leave it to be Her movie in theaters because it was the one with the right show it was why it was valuable to have a movie open on 2000 screens because saturation Was just basically short of an atomic disaster that was usually driven by like intense negative That was right that like you would just get to fall walk up business Let's go see a movie right and I don't think that's gonna happen here and you were wrong But I hope I'm so fucking wrong But the fact that it's opening without competition and then we're gonna get some headline of like this is the worst weekend before Christmas or two weekends before Christmas and like fucking ten years I'm like what do you guys want? You like didn't release anything commercial for two months and then put $3 billion movies within three four weeks of each other They're like sucking up all the oxygen because you didn't spread them out Were you funding me or is the element K-pose thing actually an online thing? Uh, we're trying to make this thing a lot of people are doing it in a jokey way on Twitter, but I think it's more film Twitter Okay, it's not like it's not like it's not like me gentle minions or anything I don't think so How would it be if it had some fucking like you never know, but you lip sync tick talks Yeah, you know any like some weird surprising viral thing that somehow sells it Like what if it performs like fucking uh, uh, a great showman like it opens to three and everyone's like, oh, and then we can do your like It's up 250 percent is that that that circus musical? Yeah, yeah Or you say oh just they open to three and then makes three for 29 more weeks small drop Anybody about a romantic total of 30 How kids learn basic math like what's three times seven weeks of LMA?

Boy, no, it'll probably open to a black hat or so Let me let's I just want to go back to two other things Uh, because I feel like uh, the the younger brother is a total dud is the seminary I keep hearing for everyone who's seen it and I came loaded for bear Especially having read that script and been like fuck this part is interesting if not incredibly tricky to pull off And I kind of liked him if only because I think the worst version of that character is someone doing 8 000 fucking really loud ticks And I appreciated his choice to be too Unweren't they tried to get they tried to get Justin barth, though It just a reprises glee roll that feels like the nightmare of what I was worried It was gonna be when people told me the kid was bad Where I'm just like he's gonna be like fucking touching the door not 20 times and like screaming He's just like how do you in a way that people don't like when certain young electors do that kind of role? I don't know who would be good. I don't know either Yeah, it's a little bit of an impossible part and how he set it up. Yeah, um I do the performance I quietly really like in this movie and a scene where I was like this feels like fucking classic james All brooks magic is the other part of her security detail Who's trying to get over time because he's going through a divorce and money to raise But that scene I mean is truly out of nowhere And one of those things where you're like did I forget that I went to the bathroom or something and this guy was set up earlier Because it is james old brooks magic.

I agree. It's the classic james old brooks thing But everyone's got a story. I know who do you want to know? Can I reveal to you guys reveal to me?

That is a young actor named joey brooks Joey brooks with the son of james old brooks who I how to help To get cast in his dad with that is such a weird coincidence that he ended up in that movie I know that's so crazy. I know that's so crazy. I really like him and he's like it doesn't work that much But he's got one scene in the big short. Yeah, I remember I just I'm looking at him to be and I remember that And I remember being like who is this guy?

He's got interesting dialogue rhythms and an interesting energy and interesting face It is john garo and thin weight rock try to go to get take a big meeting Yeah, and their receptionist comes downstairs right gives him the polite brush off That's him was sent down to like test if they're worth right his time And he's really good in it and then he was like mike clearly likes him a lot I think he's got small part and vice or don't look up he showed up on winning time He's like my age. He's like my 30s. There are a couple other things he's been in but I always think he's interesting He's in molly's game. He plays like one of the young.

Yeah, he's in 17 episodes of winning time a show I watch It does feel like mike always cast him Probably for some connection to his father. Right. I think he is actually the rare case of like that scene is wild man It's a wild scene, but I think he plays it beautifully sure Yeah, and on paper you're waiting for the explanation of why is this scene in this movie It's the director's son But also it gives Ella a chance to be kind of a little annoyed about it where it's like oh She's really principal but also principal is not taking into account that sometimes people need actually I don't know it's also working in this pseudo romantic plot line she has with Camille that does not actually come to fruition But the I feel like there's the Vegas hint in that final scene of like oh maybe there'll be something there Because he quits his job to work with her Which there isn't also a reshoot by the way the movie is supposed to just end with He steps down. I'm stunned to learn that bizarre scene was a reshoot the scene where they're like do you want to tell her?

I'll tell her okay. Here we are. We can announce that you have fed a very specific number like 9,482 moms or whatever it was like It doesn't it's very strange but it also feels nice It feels like a test screening note of the movie ends with she's resigned and she's 34 with a She's doing something right. I like when people help moms.

Okay, sorry sue me I like the movie too. I like what she wants to help people it'd be funny if she was like she takes power and she's like okay great Though I'm gonna be hurt the point we took food away from 9,000 families doesn't two weeks notice and with Sandra Will it also working at legal aid possibly? I mean like I feel like we're going to work for legal aid is how people resolve like a lawyer story Yeah, don't worry. They're not even anymore.

They left the poison system Yeah, yeah I met someone the other day and I was like what is your wife do and she was like oh She's a lawyer who works at a nonprofit for like fighting eviction and I was like oh so she's a sellout and she's a Person I was making friends with didn't realize that I was joking. Oh, they thought you were just really Yeah, I was like okay as much as I liked that it ended with everything working out and her being you know The nicest lady it would have been kind of cool if like you see the back of a chair and she turns around she's smoking a cigar She's in the mob now He went totally Even a pizza comes flying at the screen Drips down and she says the end exactly that would be good In tomato sauce Audiences reject this movie mad that ending no I was gonna say that's probably the reason why you know the Monday morning quarterback is right are gonna say like it really Needed to send audiences out of the high note of seeing the end spell that and cheese splattered against the screen the ninja turtles needed to be vaguely Okay, how can we help? Raphael show up this movie's either radical nor bodacious and I'll find the ninja turtle from Rhode Island But I know it is sort of a hero in a half Look this is and this is why Ben is in a good mood. He's got a big smile in the space hour last record of 2025 Oh, wow, that's significant.

Yes. I don't think I've ever been here for the last record of anything Griffin is going on a work vacation I'm doing a little work. We're not gonna talk about that I know what it is pretty much because it's top secret. I just want to read the film talk secret I don't want people speculating too largely about it Cuz I feel like Ben has been doing some wind up cuz it's an exciting thing I think it will just be a fun surprise to people when they see you're gonna be in a Barney Frank's dad films I think that's great you say the same thing on next week's episode which covers the film what's called avatar colon the way of water No fire and I know already like wait a second is her be talking in doomsday Is that why It's not but it will be a fun thing when it when it is a made public so next week on playing check We're talking about avatar fire Nash, then we're taking a week off Then we're talking about is this thing on we're gonna take a week on to talk about this week that movie Yeah, and then we'll talk about part time what's no other choice But to remind people in our week off first episode critical darling on this very Every Thursday after that.

Yeah through the end of our through Oscar stuff. Yeah, and then after that as you said We're doing when Ramsey after Parked and we're after that and Peter we're after that and after that Lynn Ramsey from something about Mary. Yeah. Yeah, I looked that lady up the other day because I wanted to use her photo But they'll tan later.

Yeah, yeah, just great anyway, I left it. How's she doing? She's alright? Yeah?

Great cool great So I mean updated James Elperks rankings Ben. Do you like this more or less than spanglish? No, I was mangeal My top that's your number one. Well, no between the two okay.

Yeah, cuz I feel like I go broadcast news terms of indierment as good as it gets this then I go Spanglish How do you know where I'll do anything? What should pick your point? Also, it's like which cut of I'll do anything I'm like prioritizing I think there's more and I'll do anything I like even if the worst of it is more disastrous versus like how do you know kind of just making you feel bad from beginning to end? Making my teeth.

Yeah, I think any ranking I would do it have to put it out at the bottom. Yeah Work you did. Thank you. Great stuff.

Thank you. You are the best remember that you can do anything. I mean I do yeah Well, that's a now an epilogue and to our James Elperks. I don't think I'm ever gonna come back for another James I I mean, maybe it would be a History has to go.

Yeah, but it's interesting. I'm sure we appreciate him. We appreciate him. We do for all the laws We appreciate him.

We do I mean, yeah, and we appreciate you the listener, but of course this is the last episode of the year So I shouldn't be too over the top about all this For us subscribe to the premiere party newsletter, please I please do my upon them is gonna have my legs broke and stay subscribed right here for critical darling Yes, and next week we're gonna get all fucking horns. Oh, yeah, I'm gonna bring Vering. Oh Richard. Have you met Vering?

Oh, I've met Vering Yeah, I sure have you want to throw out a quick or anything just since you're not on that. I would have penny sequels parties I think it's a great performance that's under use. Yeah, I could have been more for a year's why I'd say they left me wanting more Leaving red beans bad fire bad Fire bad. There's some other some racial stuff in that movie that I'll be curious to hear you guys talk about.

Oh, we don't You think that movie is just a technical or pretty much. That's you it treats them all the sandwiches. That's right. Thank you for being here Thank you for having me what a treat is always and now that I'm I don't know what most part of the family I'm very careful part of the family now now.

You're like married by law. Yeah into the family now. I own the pizza empire. Yes Bylaw to Rylaw.

Hey Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate review and subscribe and as always Emma Mackey is Ella Muckett David's not it